The early years
Professor O. Franzius
At the Hannover Institute of Technology, which was established in the 19th century, the Department of Foundations was assigned to the Chair of Hydraulic Engineering. In 1916, Professor Hans Ludwig Otto Franzius (*1877-1936), who held the chair at the time, founded the Research Centre for Foundation Engineering and Hydraulic Engineering, which can be classified as the nucleus of the Institute of Geotechnics. Since the end of the First World War, hydraulic engineering model tests and foundation engineering tests have been carried out at the research centre, including pioneering large-scale experiments on earth pressure in a test apparatus with a movable wall, the results of which were published in the journal ‘Der Bauingenieur’ in 1924. In honour of its founder, the research institute was given the suffix Franzius-Institut.
Expansion of soil mechanics and foundation engineering experiments
Professor A. Streck
With the development of soil mechanics as an independent scientific discipline, which was largely promoted by Professor Karl von Terzaghi (*1883-1963) at the University of Technology in Vienna and internationally, Alfred Heinrich Streck (*1896-1972), a colleague of Professor Franzius, was appointed as a private lecturer in this field at the THH in 1932. His experimental and theoretical work focussed on issues relating to the determination of earth pressure and earth resistance in walls, anchor plates and piles, as well as the development of practical test equipment for determining soil mechanical parameters for foundation calculations.
In the first few years after the Second World War, Streck was deputy head of the Franzius Institute until the hydraulic engineer Professor Walter Hensen (*1901-1973) was appointed to the chair and director of the institute in 1949. In 1954, the Chair of Soil Mechanics, Weir and Dam Construction and Hydroelectric Power Plants was established for Streck. Soil mechanics and foundation engineering experiments continued to be carried out at the Franzius Institute and in a wooden barrack next to the hydraulic engineering hall on the Schneiderberg in Hanover.
Institute of Foundation Engineering, Soil Mechanics and Hydraulic Power Engineering
Professor E. Lackner
With the appointment of Professor Erich Lackner (*1913-1992), an Austrian who had already been working worldwide in foundation engineering and harbour construction with his large engineering firm, to the Hannover Institute of Technology in 1964, he was assigned the field of foundation engineering in teaching and research. His chair was named Foundation Engineering, Soil Mechanics and Hydraulic Power Engineering. The Institute of Soil Mechanics, created shortly before the end of Streck's term of office in 1961, was established as a university facility under Lackner's management, and laboratory space was initially rented for it in Striehlstraße in Hanover. The chair of hydraulic engineering was assigned to the Franzius Institute. After the retirement of Professor Hensen in 1972, the names of the institutes were changed to reflect the actual research activities, namely the Franzius Institute for Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering at the Hannover Institute of Technology on the one hand and the Institute for Foundation Engineering and Soil Mechanics on the other. A few years later, hydraulic energy engineering was also incorporated into the name of the institute and the designation IGBE (Institute of Foundation Engineering, Soil Mechanics and Hydraulic Power Engineering) was introduced.
In line with the practical orientation under Professor Lackner, the IGBE quickly developed into a modern and experimentally powerful institution - from 1974 located on the university campus on Appelstraße - with a steadily growing number of employees. Extensive soil mechanics research was commissioned by the construction industry and building authorities for complex foundation engineering projects in Germany and abroad. In soil mechanics research, the IGBE focused primarily on the material behaviour of soft cohesive coastal soils. Since 1970, the scientific research results have been documented in the Institute's own announcements; previously the technical papers were published in the announcements of the Franzius Institute.
Special Civil Engineering, Measurement Technology and Internationalisation
Professor H. Müller-Kirchenbauer and Professor V. Rizkallah
In 1982, Professor Hanno Müller-Kirchenbauer (*1934-2004) was appointed to Hanover from his chair at the TU Berlin, where his research focussed on the field of special foundation engineering. A hall in a listed horse stable building of a former Guelph cavalry regiment was made available to the IGBE for large-scale experiments in the fields of injection technology, diaphragm wall technologies and underground hydraulics.
In addition to Professor Müller-Kirchenbauer, the professors Victor Rizkallah (*1933) and Werner Blümel (*1944) worked at the IGBE and contributed further research areas and activities. Professor Rizkallah's research focused on underground district heating pipelines, structural damage research and the load-bearing behaviour of special piles. He was Vice President of the university from 1984-1986. He also initiated and led an international Master's degree programme for students from emerging countries from 1986. Professor Blümel's main areas of research were landfill construction with geosynthetics and geotechnical measurement technologies during construction.
Institute of Geotechnical Engineering
Professor M. Achmus
In 2001, Professor Martin Achmus (*1965) from the University of Essen was appointed to the IGBE as Müller-Kirchenbauer's successor. He expanded the IGtH's research to include the topics of offshore foundations, cyclic loading of earth materials, subsoil dynamics and numerical modelling methods in geotechnics.
In 2010, the Institute for Underground Construction was incorporated into the IGBE as a department whose research focusses on the mechanics of salt rock and cavern construction. The institute is now called the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at the Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) with the sign IGtH.
